Dream on film

A new movie Canadian Dream made by an immigrant for other immigrants puts the struggles of newcomers in Canada up front and centre.

“They are ready to start a new life, investing their life savings, all their effort, sometimes only to have their hopes dashed, when they realize it is not quite the picture that they had painted in their minds,” says the filmmaker Babukishan, himself an Indian-born immigrant to Canada.

The documentary drama follows an optimistic Indian family who arrives in Canada with hopes of a new life full of opportunity. However, they soon discover it is not quite as easy to find work or adjust to life in Canada as they thought.

“The teenage son is bullied and is disturbed watching his father struggle in a job that is below his level — he was a successful lawyer back in India,” says Babukishan. “This is a story of one young man’s struggle between working hard, and innocently enough he falls into the wrong company, the world of gangsters and drug dealing. He wants to make fast money, to help his family, and be accepted by a community that has rejected him.”